


hard to swallow

by cexies



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Quadrant Confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cexies/pseuds/cexies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their neglect is mirrored in one another, half the same: yet half distinct. Vriska has no brakes, no morals or guidelines. Terezi sometimes feels that brakes, morals and guidelines are all she has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hard to swallow

The two sisters stand opposite one another, with only a coin flip between them. The stink of metal has never been so strong to Terezi before — but in this moment it is all she can concentrate on. The outcome is irrelevant, they both know this in their hearts without an utterance to one another, but the act itself is confirmation that they are coming to their final blows.

As the coin begins it’s descent, Terezi knows she is not a petty killer. She has killed for justice, and the last time she killed was to save a life in return. This killing will have no tick boxes for such excuses. It will be merciless and cruel. She has lived her life believing that is the definition of her being, but maybe she has spent too much time listening to their leader in recent times; now she is too attached — she has bonds and connections and friendships.

And she has a sister.

The coin clatters to the ground, but several feet away in a diagonal direction. Its course has been altered by the back of Terezi’s hand — knocking it out of view. She regrets tossing it in the first place.

“What’s wrong Redglare?”

“We’re not doing this.”

“No,” Vriska smiles, and there should never be so many teeth shown with one lift of the mouth. “No you’re right, doing this would be soooooooo boring!” She steps closer, and Terezi finds orange to be an incredibly overwhelming smell. “So let’s cut out the part where I kill you, and skip to the part where I leave.”

“No.” The path is changing, and Terezi can see where it can go — what it can blossom into and become. She’s going to save them both, save them all. “You’re not going at all.”

“Ehh? What’s this?” The back of Vriska’s fist punches against Terezi’s chest, and the smaller of the two staggers backwards a step. “You reeeeeeeeally think you’re going to stop me? Oh please Terezi, we both know better than this. You always get frustrated and leave — like with the FLARPing, the stories and the visits! You always threw the towel in when you lost control, and let’s face it, what control do you have now?”

Terezi returns the punch by grabbing the front of Vriska’s outfit, snarling and riled. She isn’t standing here to listen to past grievances: she is standing here to change the future. “You’re going to die.”

“By your hand?”

“By Jack’s, you exasperating fool!” She pushes her sister away from her again, ears burning with the ringing of Vriska’s mocking laughter. On defensive impulse, Terezi strikes her down the jaw with her fist. This time Vriska reels back, a mixture between cursing and laughing bubbling through the resulting silence.

“Didn’t know you could hit so well!” She shrugs, but Terezi can taste the tremors that underlie the atmosphere. “Always saw you as the kind to slice, stab and cheat — never getting your hands dirty.”

There’s a returning pun on the tip of Terezi’s tongue, but the only thing that ends up on said tongue is her teeth and stream of her own blood. She tries to screech an insult but the fire in her jaw doesn’t allow for it just yet. Instead she grips Vriska’s shoulder, placing her foot behind the other’s leg and giving a shove to slam the girl to the floor. They both fall down and wrestle for dominance. Vriska is much more experienced with physical fights, and comes out on top first. Terezi’s head slams against the floor and her vision blanks, senses too confused to pick out the colors and shapes that produce images. She hasn’t been fully blind in nearly a sweep, and she flails in panic as if she is drowning. The pressure on her chest lets up but it’s not quick enough to stop Terezi’s instincts from kicking in.

The adrenaline allows her to overpower Vriska, the two rolling again until Vriska’s back slams against the floor with a crack. Terezi’s vision comes back to her just as there’s claws sliding over her throat and resting over her vocal cords. They tighten enough to leave saliva dripping from her mouth as she chokes back air, but not enough to deprive oxygen. The pressure is still uncomfortable, and she spits into Vriska’s face from desperation. The other girl recoils in disgust, and it’s a second long enough for Terezi to re-gain control again.

“I’m not letting you do it!” she rasps, fingers digging into the crevices where Vriska’s collarbones lie. She is dreadfully thin, enough for Terezi to know that she is not spending enough time on her own health and well-being — however, Terezi is just as scrappy; surviving without a lusus is not all it is cracked up to be. Their neglect is mirrored in one another, half the same: yet half distinct. Vriska has no brakes, no morals or guidelines. Terezi sometimes feels that brakes, morals and guidelines are all she has. She is almost certain they are all she has left to fight with today.

“Don’t think I can take him Pyrope?” Vriska bites back, raising her knee until it hits Terezi square in the stomach. It’s a cheap trick that she isn’t expecting, and the force pushes her onto her side in pain. However, Terezi is a girl who has taken worse blows, and soon enough she is pouncing on Vriska again. The two mesh into a tangle of aggression, falling over backwards with a display that would shame any certified fighter. They struggle with even pace, blood drawing from where their claws dig into each other and their teeth skim across their jawlines. Once again, Terezi comes out on top, and decides against pinning Vriska. She cages her instead, using her body as a barricade between her sister’s vulnerability and the rest of the world.

“Stop this. Stop it,” she orders, getting her words in before Vriska can say anything. “If you do this then we’re doomed, you’re doomed. You’ll die and we can’t have our light gone,” she hurriedly whispers, trying to talk sense before the other opens her mouth and breaks the spell. She pushes away from Vriska to shift weight onto her knees, instead moving her hands to stroke across her sister’s face. “This is stupid, if you stay we can find the solution together. Trust me — trust me Vris.” To her surprise, Vriska actually keeps eye contact — breathing less erratically and transfixed on Terezi’s movements. She continues with the face touching, Vriska’s response fuelling enough confidence to start papping her with urgency. “I wouldn’t lie to you, I’ve never lied to you because I can’t; listen to me when I say you’re going to die in vain and doom the rest of us with you.”

“I can win,” Vriska protests, but it’s subdued and more a-like to a wriggler’s whine than an argument starter.

“Not now,” Terezi finalizes, and the face beneath her hands barely responds in recognition. She carefully lifts Vriska up from the ground and into a sitting position, her body smells of defeat. But the storm isn’t over yet, and Terezi drapes herself around Vriska’s frame. She tries to cocoon the girl into her as best as she can, limbs protectively wrapping around her. They breathe into one another’s necks, Terezi gently rocking them both backwards and forwards.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hands trailing through the tangled locks that decorate Vriska’s back like a blanket. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words tumble out without restraint, as if she was hatched only to make these phonetics happen.

“Why?” Vriska’s voice is quiet and Terezi instinctively tightens her grip.

“I’m sorry, because—” Her hand stills, hovering away from strands of hair as her stomach drops. She has swallowed stones: that is the only answer to why she suddenly feels so sick. Every part of her body screams that she knows, but she want to cling for a moment longer and live in the reality she could never make.

She can only blind herself for so long.

“This isn’t what happens.” Realization draws out her speech to be slow and tentative. Her hand moves to cup Vriska’s cheek, for some kind of confirmation — but it’s already too late; she knows it’s a dream. “I kill you,” Terezi admits, mourning as the skin beneath her hands ceases to exist. “I kill you and—”

The scene suddenly changes, and instead of the comfort of blueberry and troll, she is thrown into a world of cement with wild dashes of cherry. Terezi lashes out to rip out the eyeballs of whatever is attacking her, but the hands on her shoulders are alien — yet soft and familiar. The fight leaves her as her body accepts that it’s a friend, her hands pathetically falling down to her chest instead of tearing through Dave’s cape. She blinks in confusion, Dave only murmuring something about easy tigers. She bats his hands away after a minute, sitting up of her own accord to think straight.

“I thought you’d appreciate coming back to the real world; you were thrashing around so much even the Mayor didn’t want to come over for fear of mauling with intent to consume,” Dave explains, turning his attention back to whatever book he’s been pouring over. Terezi regards him for a moment, all blurred cherry topped with sun-kissed lemon, and she laughs. Her body drops back against the tiles and the pain doesn’t even register. She hates him so much right now, and it is totally unfair to do so — but the world is unfair and cruel, and now is the time to sulk: to mourn the quadrants failed with one to force on another.

“So what was it this time?” Dave interrupts, courtesy and concern mixed into one. They do not do the whole talking thing so well, but he is a gentleman through and through. “We can document the enlightenment if you want. I mean, we are reaching serious dream diary progress on Rose’s chart here: even had to re-calibrate the thing to account for all this therapeutic echeladder we are climbing.”

In Terezi’s muddled mind, there is no room for Dave’s words today. She already misses the dialect that disappeared only moments ago — the metaphors replacing it don’t fill what she needs most. There’s no comfort in the obscured. She wants honesty: brutal and real. Slowly, she considers his question as if it is a trick.

“The truth.”

“Criptic as usual,” he simply comments, and Terezi knows Vriska would understand what to say — that sometimes, even objective legislators want to fall into the world of the subjective, with a snarky anchor to lead them. Dave and Vriska, aren’t even comparable, but right now every thought has to relate back to her sister. As long as she can hold onto the false reality, then she can pretend it happened — role-playing and imagining has always been her forte.

Truth, however, has always been a hard and bitter pill to swallow.

**Author's Note:**

> written for the kinkmeme, but i can't find the prompt...


End file.
